Honorary Professor
Dottore in Lettere & Filosofia, University of Florence
MA in Educational Management, University of Greenwich
PhD in Second Language Acquisition, University of Greenwich
Alessandro Benati is Professor and Head of the School of Education at the University College Dublin, Ireland. He has held academic positions in several British and overseas institutions. He has published ground-breaking research on the pedagogical framework called processing instruction. Alessandro has coordinated national and international high-impact research projects which have been influential in determining educational policy and had an impact in providing effective language teacher training programs. He is the author and co-author of several research monographs, peer-reviewed articles in high-ranked journals, and editor and co-editor of book series and scientific journals such as Cambridge Elements in SLA and Instructed Second Language Acquisition. He was a member of the sub-panel for Modern Languages and Linguistics for the Research Excellence Framework for England (REF 2021), and the AHRC Panel (UK).
Professional Affiliations:
Visiting Professor, Macquarie University, Australia, University of Anaheim, USA
Scientific advisor at University of Salzburg, Austria https://pibilinguals.wixsite.com/pibil3
Honorary Professor at the University of York SJ, UK
Selected Publications / Presentations:
Benati, A., Angelovska, T. (2026). Second language acquisition: A theoretical introduction to evidence-based language teaching. Bloomsbury.
Pouresmaeil, A.,Wang, X., Benati, A. (2026). The online effects of processing instruction on the acquisition of the English passive structure and the role of input modality. Language Teaching Research (issue and pages forthcoming).
Benati, A. (2026). Tackling the lack of expertise in language acquisition and misleading beliefs in second language teaching: Suggesting the way forward in language teacher education. Accepted and forthcoming in Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 35(4), 9-21.
Grants / Awards / Other Achievements:
Grant for PEDAL – AI pedagogical engine-driven tool for teachers. In partnership with NOVA UCD. Programme: ARC Hub for ICT. Research Body (RPO): University College Dublin. Translational Research Project (TRP) Title: PEDAL: A Pilot-Ready AI Pedagogical Engine for Multilingual Language Education. Translational Researcher (TR): €149,322.00.
Co-ordinator of New UCD Psycholinguistic Lab and Director of the PhD programme in bilingual education at University College Dublin. https://www.ucd.ie/education/research/lab/
C0-investigator of HEA HEREG, UCD Experimental Social Sciences Lab.